The Impossible Box
by writergirl8
Summary: The first time Darcy steps onto the TARDIS, his entire perspective of the world changes. Everything in his life had always been neatly folded and deposited into boxes. He had never felt the desire to stray from reality- nor had he had the time or reason. But he gets one as soon as the bright blue box lands elegantly in Lizzie's bedroom.


The first time Darcy steps onto the TARDIS, his entire perspective of the world changes. Everything in his life had always been neatly folded and deposited into boxes. He had never felt the desire to stray from reality- nor had he had the time or reason. But he gets one as soon as the bright blue box lands elegantly in Lizzie's bedroom. Lizzie is sleeping beside him, and he thinks he might be hallucinating because there's no possible way that this could be happening. As he sits up in shock, the door creaks open, and a man wearing a bow tie sticks himself out.

"ELIZABETH BENNET, GET YOUR COAT!" he bellows, startling Lizzie awake.

"Doctor?" she mumbles into her pillow. She pats Darcy's cheek. " William, tell him I'm asleep." Her eyes shoot open. "William!"

"Dear, you'd better hurry up, he's in a right state tonight," says a woman with extremely kinky hair, poking her head out the door as well.

"I am not in a state! If we _weren't _trying to save Pocahontis from being turned into a cyberman, I would most definitely call this a state, but given the current circumstances, I feel that I am _not in a state_. Now get dressed and tell me whether or not we're picking up Charlotte."

Lizzie has managed to get out of bed and pull on her discarded clothes. She approaches the blue box and dashes barefooted into it. Darcy can't exactly hear everything, but he catches the sound of the hair woman laughing, and Lizzie's angry voice drifting in between her chuckles. He catches the words "rule" and "bedroom" and "man" and "think!" Then there's silence, and Lizzie pads quickly back into her bedroom.

"William, can you… can you come in here?" she asks tentatively.

He doesn't know how they're all going to fit, but he's a bit dazed, so he pulls back the covers and walks to Lizzie. She gently takes his hand and pulls him forward into… into… into…

"It's another dimension," Lizzie says quietly from beside him. He doesn't need to turn to her to know that she's watching him very carefully, trying to gauge his reaction. Instead, his eyes soak in the sight of this madman in a box and the woman who stands beside him, wearing a long black dress and smiling comfortably. Like they aren't in a ginormous blue telephone box that's bigger on the inside.

"Tell me what you're thinking," Lizzie murmurs, but he doesn't know what to say because all he's really thinking is that he's standing in another dimension in plaid pajama bottoms and without a shirt.

"What… what is it?" he inquires after swallowing several times. His voice is low. Controlled.

"It's a time machine, dear," calls the woman from where she's standing. "Can travel anywhere in space and time."

"River!" Lizzie admonishes. "I was going to _ease _him into it."

"Well, there's no time for that, love, we've got a Native American Princess to save!"

For the first time, the Doctor looks up from all the controls that lie in the center of the inside of the strange box.

"Oi, you!" he says, directing his words towards Darcy. "Don't you own a shirt?"

"No, sweetie, because he doesn't need one," smirks River, eying Darcy's chest appreciatively.

Lizzie clears her throat loudly.

"Wardrobe that way," she says, shoving Darcy in the right direction.

He starts walking, then halts in front of the Doctor.

"Could I borrow one of your bow ties?" Darcy inquires quickly. "It's that's not too much trouble."

The Doctor looks delightedly between River, Lizzie, and Darcy.

"Oh!" he says happily. "William Darcy, you are a _beauty_. Wear all the bow ties you want!" As Darcy walks off, he thinks he hears the Doctor say, "I'm going to like him very much."

He hears Lizzie slap the Doctor's arm, the Doctor's indignant "ow!" and then River's laughing voice saying, "Come on, sweetie, let's go pick up Charlotte."


End file.
